Survey finds Nordic data centre market full of promise – and naivety

The Nordics have become one of the hot areas when it comes to data centres – largely due to their cool climate.

In a bid to see how the market is progressing in the area, DigiPlex conducted a study with IDG Connect to reveal the considerable changes in business attitudes and awareness during this temperamental time of digital transformation.

The report (A Perfect Storm: Nordic Data Centre Trends 2018) is based off a survey of 300 business leaders in the Nordic Region. There were a number of interesting revelations, with the results finding data centres and issues related to their operation are achieving new prominence as a method to reduce business risk, boost competitiveness, and improve sustainability.

Despite this though, DigiPlex says there are still substantial awareness gaps, which reflect the significant barriers businesses still need to surpass to bring real change.

A staggering 60 percent are not sure in which country their data resides.

91 percent are in the process of moving their data to an alternative location to comply with GDPR.

71 percent have already implemented urgent digital change or are currently in the process.

When the survey was last conducted in 2016, sustainability was dead last in the list in 26th place of most significant data centre challenges – it is now fourth behind security, energy, and operating costs.

“The global race to digitise has increasingly revealed data storage and management at the critical ‘nerve centre’ of strategic business decisions. Home to both incredible potential for both risk and reward, I am amazed that 60% of the respondents are still not sure in which country their data resides” says DigiPlex CEO Gisle M. Eckhoff.

“Given the incredible impact location can have on a data centre’s operation, security and value, this ignorance is dangerous and costly.”

According to the survey, the global deployment of technologies like AI, AR, and data analytics has seen a great increase in the prominence of data centres at C-level.

70 percent of companies assert the most prominent source of disruption that is expected to change core business models with a substantial impact on revenue and margins is coming from cloud computing, with big data and analytics (69 percent), and AI and ML (66 percent) close on its heels.

Eckhoff says with all these factors considered, an enormous change in business models, structures, operations, and sustainability is clearly on the very near horizon.

“Cloud and Big Data Analytics will be among the main disruption factors on the short track for all company business models. 74 percent of the companies surveyed say that their survival will be dependent on digital conversion, and this ‘Digitize or Die’ trend will lead to new investments in sustainable data centres,” says Eckhoff.